Police directives closely resemble coercive threats, yet for many, they are more than this. According to the police power-liability view, the exercise of legitimate police authority creates genuine changes in the normative situations of the addressees of power. This explains why, on the surface, police and the orders of a gunman are strikingly similar: Both primarily motivate us through the threat of coercive physical force. Police directives however, carry more normative weight. Here, police di…
Read morePolice directives closely resemble coercive threats, yet for many, they are more than this. According to the police power-liability view, the exercise of legitimate police authority creates genuine changes in the normative situations of the addressees of power. This explains why, on the surface, police and the orders of a gunman are strikingly similar: Both primarily motivate us through the threat of coercive physical force. Police directives however, carry more normative weight. Here, police directives may affect our normative situations in ways that do not necessarily entail an obligation to obey them—they may create standing liability to them. This suggests that we need not presume the existence of a duty to obey police.
